The Pawnbroker: A Novel

By Edward Lewis Wallant and Dara Horn

For most of us, remembering the Holocaust requires effort; we listen to stories, watch films, read histories. But the people who came to be called survivors” could not avoid their memories. Sol Nazerman, protagonist of Edward Lewis Wallant’s The Pawnbroker, is one such sufferer.

At 45, Nazerman, who survived Bergen-Belsen although his wife and children did not, runs a Harlem pawnshop. But the operation is only a front for a gangster who pays Nazerman a comfortable salary for his services. Nazerman’s dreams are haunted by visions of his past tortures. (Dramatizations of these scenes in Sidney Lumet’s 1964 film version are famous for being the first time the extermination camps were depicted in a Hollywood movie.)

Remarkable for its attempts to dramatize the aftereffects of the Holocaust, The Pawnbroker is likewise valuable as an exploration of the fraught relationships between Jews and other American minority groups. That this novel, a National Book Award finalist, remains so powerful today makes it all the more tragic that its talented author died, at age 36, the year after its publication. The book sold more than 500,000 copies soon after it was published.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fig Tree Books LLC
• Release date: Nov 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781941493151

Book preview

ONE

His feet crunched on the hard-packed sand. On his left was the Harlem River, across the street to the right was the Community Center, and beyond was the vast, packed city. At seven thirty in the morning it was quiet for New York. In that relative silence, his footsteps made ponderous, dragging sounds that were louder and more immediate in his own ears than the chugging of the various river boats or the wakening noise of traffic a few blocks away on 125th Street.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

It could almost have been the pleasant sound of someone walking over clean white snow. But the sight of the great, bulky figure, with its puffy face, its heedless dark eyes distorted behind the thick lenses of strangely old-fashioned glasses, dispelled any thought of pleasure.

Cecil Mapp, a small, skinny Negro, sat nursing a monumental hangover on the wooden curbing that edged the river. He gazed blearily at Sol Nazerman the Pawnbroker and thought the heavy, trudging man resembled some kind of metal conveyance. Look like a tank or like that, he thought. The sight of the big white man lifted Cecil’s spirit perceptibly; the awkward caution of his walk indicated misery on a different scale from his own. For a few minutes he forgot about his furious wife, whom he would have to face that night, forgot even the anticipated misery of a whole day’s work plastering walls with shaky, unwilling hands. He was actually moved to smile as Sol Nazerman approached, and he thought gaily, That man suffer!

He waved his hand and raised his eyebrows like someone greeting a friend at a party.

Hiya there, Mr. Nazerman. Look like it goin’ to be a real nice day, don’t it?

It is a day, Sol allowed indifferently, with a slight, side-wise movement of his head.

As he plodded along, Sol watched the quiet flow of the water. Ironically, he noted the river’s deceptive beauty. Despite its oil-green opacity and the indecipherable things floating on its filthy surface, somehow its insistent direction made it impressive.

He narrowed his eyes at the August morning: the tarnished gold light on receding bridges, the multi-shaped industrial buildings, and all the random gleams that bordered the river and made the view somehow reminiscent of a great and ancient European city.

No fear that he could be taken in by it; he had the battered memento of his body and his brain to protect him from illusion.

Oh yes, yes, a nice, peaceful summer day; quiet, safe, full of people going about their business in the rich, promising heat. A dozing morning in a great city. He looked idly at the intricate landscape, his eyes lidded with boredom as he walked.

Suddenly he had the sensation of being clubbed. An image was stamped behind his eyes like a bolt of pain. For an instant he moved blindly in the rosy morning, seeing a floodlit night filled with screaming. A groan escaped him, and he stretched his eyes wide. There was only the massed detail of a thousand buildings in quiet sunlight. In a minute he hardly remembered the hellish vision and sighed at just the recollection of a brief ache, his glass-covered eyes as bland and aloof as before. Another minute and he was allowing himself the usual shallow speculation on his surroundings.

What was there here, in this shabby patch on his journey to the store each morning, that eased him slightly? Just a large, sandy triangle, perhaps two blocks long, a waste that seemed to wait for some utilitarian purpose, or a spot where something had once existed, whose traces were now covered by the anonymous, thin layer of beach sand. It was a block out of his way, too. Eh, go figure the things a person reacts to! He liked to come this way, that was enough. Maybe it was the lovely scenery, the charming, lovely type of people you might see strewn along the way, like Cecil Mapp. Whatever—the dreams of night lost their sharp edges for him at this particular distance in time from his sleep. He glanced idly at the bright-painted tugs, the weathered, broad barges carrying all manner of things. Gradually, as he walked, he drained himself of the phantoms of his sleep, and the multiple tiny abrasions he got from his sister and her family lost their soreness. Perhaps, then, this brief part of his walk was a bridge between two separate atmospheres, a bridge upon which he could readjust the mantle of his impregnable scorn.

As he reached the apex of the sandy area and turned to the pavement, he allowed himself a moment’s recall of his troubled sleep. Not that he could remember what he had dreamed, but he knew the dreams were bad. For years he had experienced bad dreams from time to time, but lately they were occurring more frequently.

My age, I guess. At forty-five the nerves lose some of their elasticity, he thought. Agh, he said aloud, and shrugged, to throw dirt over the introspection; in the diplomatic delicacy of truce there was no sense in displaying your dead.

But when he got to the store, he could not resist a grimace at the sight of the three gilded balls hanging over the doorway. It was no more than a joke in rather poor taste that had led to this. Still, he could never evade the foolish idea, each morning when he first looked at the ugly symbol of his calling, that the sign was the result of some particularly diabolic vandalism perpetrated during the night by an unknown tormentor.

The grimace turned to a wintry smile; he still had a thin sense of humor for certain little vulgarities. So what if the onetime instructor at the University of Cracow could now be found behind the three gold balls of a pawnshop? It was by far the mildest joke life had played on him.

And the joke wasn’t entirely at his expense, either, he mused as he unfastened the elaborate series of locks, disconnected the two burglar alarms, and took down the heavy wire screening that protected the show windows during the night. No indeed, he thought, taking a slow, smug look around him. This much-maligned calling had bought him the one commodity he still valued—privacy. He had bought the large house in Mount Vernon in which he lived with his sister, Bertha, and her family, and by continuing to support them (no big houses in Mount Vernon on his brother-in-law Selig’s teacher salary), had earned his own room and bath, decently cooked meals, and best of all, his privacy from them. And, as they owed their sustenance to him, so he in turn owed Albert Murillio. Trace anything far enough and it leads to filth. Even rescuing angels must have some grime on their wing tips. He had been working for the United Jewish Appeal in Paris, and through them had gotten to America on the strength of a job offer by the pawnbroker Pearlman. He had worked two years for that half-decent man when someone told someone else that Sol Nazerman was a man with no allegiances. One day a cold, monotonous voice on the telephone had outlined a plan: one Albert Murillio would channel unreportable income through a pawnshop which Sol would manage, and be the ostensible owner of, at least on paper. The financial arrangements were unbelievably generous for Sol, and he hadn’t hesitated to accept. With mechanical ease, the deal had been consummated. Sol had worked out the details with an envoy of the unseen Murillio, an accountant had established a business structure and paid all the bills, and, lo, a new pawnbroker had been established! All in a purely logical progression; from the lofty, philanthropic people of the U.J.A. in Paris, down through the not-so-good, not-so-bad Sam Pearlman, finally to Albert Murillio—a dull, heartless voice on a telephone. And all of it was fine for Sol Nazerman. He wasted no time worrying about the sources of money; let the Murillios of the world do what they wanted as long as they made no personal demands, as long as they left his privacy inviolate. The immediate moment, and maybe the one right next to it, was as far as he cared to go.

Now, in the small, insulated chamber he dwelt in, Sol began his informal morning appraisal of the store. He derived a bleak comfort from just touching and moving the various objects a little, from hefting and studying the great and patternless conglomeration of the things people had pawned.

He plucked the strings of a warped violin, blew the dust from the lens of a Japanese camera, turned the knob of a dead radio on and off a few times. With the furtive air of an adult trying to hide interest in a child’s toy, he played lightly with the keys of an old typewriter for a few seconds before turning to plonk his fingernail against a floral china plate. In a corner under the counter he found a pair of mother-of-pearl opera glasses, and, looking in the wrong end, scanned the store, so that the place looked vast and ancient, like a museum dedicated to an odd history. And all the while, half consciously, he got a perverse pleasure from the sense of kinship, of community with all the centuries of hand-rubbing Shylocks. Yes, he, Sol Nazerman, practiced the ancient, despised profession; and he survived!

At the sound of footsteps he looked up. His assistant, Jesus Ortiz, moved toward him wearing his dazzling, bravo’s smile.

"Guten Tag, Sol, I’m here! You could let the business commence now," he said, moving with that leopard-like fluidity that made it hard to say where bone gave way to fine muscle.

If I depended on you . . . Sol frowned to cover the feeling of awe he always experienced when he first saw the brown-skinned youth each morning. The boy’s face was formed with exquisite subtlety; straight, narrow nose, high cheekbones, a mouth curved and mobile as a girl’s. He always seemed to flaunt the perfection of his face when he spoke, to offer it in a sort of spiteful compensation for what ever it was he had failed at.

It is past nine thirty already, Sol said, turning his attention sternly to the pile of bills on the counter.

I know, I know, Jesus said regretfully, shaking his sleek, narrow head so that one shiny strand of black hair flopped over his forehead. I jus’ have the biggest trouble gettin’ out of bed mornings. He jerked his head back with a practiced movement to toss the strand of hair into place. Then he scowled at one of the multitude of clocks, a grandfather clock that both of them knew was fixed in permanent paralysis at nine twenty. Well now, I told you I want this all to be real businesslike. That clock say twenty minute past nine, so I gonna insist you dock me for exactly . . .

You are a real wise guy, Ortiz.

Aw, come on, Sol, you don’t have to worry a bit. I gonna work so goddam hard the next few hours you probably offer me time-and-a-half.

He was only half joking, because he did feel a strange dedication to the job that his sense of logic told him was a fool’s vocation. Jesus Ortiz had earned three and four times his present salary in riskier and more remunerative pursuits, enterprises that had called upon his wits and his reflexes. For ten months he had sold marijuana cigarettes, and once, two years before, when he had been eighteen, he had shared in the loot from a robbed warehouse. But there had always been a deep-rooted nervousness in him, a feeling of fragility and terror. He had never wanted to account for this feeling, because that would have been like succumbing to it. But if he had, he might have connected it with the memory of being left alone at night as a child while his husband-deserted mother went off to work as a scrubwoman in a downtown office building. She had always left the door of the apartment open for some neighbor woman to listen in, but Jesus had known there was no one to hear his heart-cries, so he had practiced a horrid silence amidst the barbaric voices of all the neighborhoods they had lived in. Night was emptiness, dark was nothingness. Later on, that dreadful hollow had come to hide even from his memory, but he had its residue, and it had left him with peculiar mannerisms. He would laugh at the most inappropriate moments, and once, when a group of white boys had seized him, pulled his pants down, and pretended to emasculate him with a harmless little twig, he had shrieked with a sound of such mad glee that they had released him and run away. Now, when he was restless (his own word for those strange, dizzying moods), he sometimes went to the Catholic church where his mother was a parishioner, to kneel without prayer before the crucifix and indulge an odd daydream. He would imagine the bearded figure was the father he had never seen, and, kneeling there, he would smile cruelly at the thought of his imagined father’s riven flesh. And yet, strangely, at those times he would feel the anguish of love, too, and his body would seem to contain a terrible, racking struggle. So that when he got up to leave the church, he would be exhausted and listless, and it would appear to him that he had banished the restlessness.

Several months before, he had seized on the idea of business. He had visualized solidity and immense strength in it and had even, in his wilder moments, begun to daydream a mercantile dynasty, some great store with his name emblazoned in gold on its sign. And so he had answered Sol’s ad for a bright, willing-to-learn young man to assist in pawnshop. Opportunity to learn the business. Once there, in the presence of the big, inscrutable Jew, he had become even more obsessed with the magic potential of business, for there had seemed to be some great mystery about the Pawnbroker, some secret which, if he could learn it, would enrich Jesus Ortiz immeasurably.

Meanwhile, I see you still standing there, Sol said. You who are going to work so hard.

But Ortiz wasn’t listening; he was staring raptly at the papers spread out before the Pawnbroker.

You pay all your bills by check, do you? he asked. I mean that’s the most businesslike way, ain’t it? What do you do, just fill out how much and to who on that little stub like and then . . .

Sol exhaled a deep breath of exasperation.

Well Christ, man, I s’pose to be learnin’ the business, too, ain’t I? You ain’t done much learnin’ of me, far as I could see.

All right, all right, tomorrow, remind me tomorrow. When it gets quiet, late tomorrow afternoon, maybe we’ll go over a few things, Sol said dully.

Okay, Ortiz said, flashing that sudden, almost shockingly irrelevant smile that sometimes affected Sol like a quick painful scratch against his skin. "I gonna rearrange them suits upstairs efficient! I been thinkin’ to break ’em down into type of suit an’ by price. They’s a shitload of summer suits. . . . You waste a good hour just gettin’ to the type suit somebody wants. I got me a bunch of cards an’ I’m gonna label . . ."

You have a lot of plans. So how come you are still standing with your nose in what I’m doing?

Ortiz dazed him with the peculiar beauty of his smile again. There was something dangerous and wild on his smooth face, a look of guile and unpredictable curiosity; and yet, oddly, there was an unnerving quality of volatile innocence there, too. He seemed to have some . . . what—a cleanness of spirit? Oh sure, the boy had sold marijuana, according to old John Rider, the janitor, and had probably stolen and pandered and God knew what else. And yet . . . somehow Sol had the vague feeling that there were certain horrors this boy would not commit. In Sol Nazerman’s eyes, this was a great deal; there were very few people to whom he attributed even that limitation of evil.

"Go already with your big plans, with your labeling!"

You right, Sol, no question, you got my number. Take me time to get me a start on. But here I go, watch me move, I’m atom-power, shh-ht. And with that he was around the corner and on the steps leading up to the loft, moving with the amazing litheness that so startled Sol. For a moment, as he heard the footsteps ascending and then on the floor over his head, he stared at the last point at which he had seen the boy, his eyes faintly bemused, his face seemingly caught on a shelf of ease. Briefly, he tried to recall the distant sensation of youth. With his head tilted a little, his expression became vapid, loose, and vulnerable looking. All the clocks ticked or buzzed an anonymous time. But then he suddenly wiped at his face as though at some unseen perspiration. A jagged darkness closed around his casting back, and he began frowning over the bills again.

There were only a few business bills; most of them were the personal expenses incurred by his sister’s family. Here was a staggering telephone bill, an electric bill twice the size of the store’s, and a bill for a new rug bought by Bertha. There were, in addition, several clothing bills incurred by his niece, Joan, a dermatologist’s bill and an internist’s bill for Selig, and a bill from the art school his nephew, Morton, attended. His lips hardened as he began making out the checks.

He heard a heavy jingling and looked up to see Leventhal, the policeman, standing and rocking on the balls of his feet.

What d’ya say, Solly? How’s business?

You could be my first customer of the day. You want to hock the badge, or maybe the gun?

Can’t do that, Solly; need them to protect you.

Oh yes, to protect me, Sol said sarcastically. Leventhal had been making it increasingly evident that he imagined Sol had something to hide, that he, Leventhal, might be in a position to expect some kind of favors from Sol.

Speaking of protection, what the hell time were you here till last night? Leventhal asked, with an expression of affectionate admonishment on his tough, blue-jawed face.

Why do you ask?

Why! I’ll tell you why. Because you’re asking for trouble staying open so late in this neighborhood, all by yourself. All the other Uncles close up at six o’clock. What are you trying to do, get rich fast or what? Maybe you think you’re like a doctor, hah? Gotta be on call in case some nigger suddenly runs out of booze money or needs dough for a quick fix. I mean you got to wise up, Solly. You get some kind of trouble here and pretty soon the department starts poking their nose in your business and . . . He shrugged suggestively.

I appreciate your concern. I know what I am doing. Just do not trouble yourself worrying about me, Sol said coldly, lowering his attention pointedly to the checks again.

Aw now, don’t take that attitude. That’s my business to worry about you. Where would you be without law and order?

Oh yes, law and order.

I mean you ought to be more co-operative, Solly. Take my advice in the spirit it’s given. Look, we’re landsmen, got to stick together against all these crooked goys, Leventhal said with a loose smile.

Is that a fact? He stared at the policeman with an icy, inscrutable expression. Well thank you then. Now if you will excuse me, I have work to do. A landsman indeed! And where was the heritage of a Jew in a black uniform, carrying a club and a revolver? Sol had no friends, but his enemies were clearly marked for him.

Okay, Solly, we’ll leave it at that . . . for now. Leventhal shrugged, looked slowly around with the pompous, constabulary warning, and walked slowly, insolently out, trailing a toneless whistle behind him.

And then, at ten o’clock, the traffic began.

A white man in his early twenties walked stiffly up to the grille. He had wild soft hair that rose up and was in constant motion from the tiniest drafts and crosscurrents of air, so that, with his drowned-looking face, he seemed to float under water. His clothing was threadbare but showed the conservative taste of some sensible, middle-class shopper. He held a paper bag before him under crossed arms, and he stared with cautious intensity at the Pawnbroker before even entrusting his burden to the edge of the counter.

How much will you give me? he asked in a low, breathless voice.

For what? Sol twisted his mouth impatiently.

For this, the man answered, his black eyes gleaming above the big blade of nose. There was something histrionic and a little mad in his manner, and he clutched at the bag as though against Sol’s attempt to steal it.

"This, this . . . what in hell is this? All I am able to see is a paper bag. What are you selling? I am no mind reader." Sol’s voice was harsh but his face was professionally bland behind the round, black-framed glasses.

It is an award for oratory, said the wild-haired young man. I won it in a city-wide oratorical contest nine years ago.

Sol took the bag, which was greasy-soft and made up of a million shallow wrinkles. He wondered where they got those bags or what they did to ordinary bags to make them feel like thin, aged skin. He opened it with an attitude of distaste. Inside was a bust of shiny yellow metal on a black-lacquered wooden base. A plaque in the same yellow metal was inscribed:

DANIEL WEBSTER AWARD

New York Public School Oratorical Contest for 1949

LEOPOLD S. SCHNEIDER

It’s gold, Leopold Schneider said.

Plate, the Pawnbroker corrected, tapping Daniel Webster’s shiny skull. Look, I’ll loan you a dollar on it. The devil what I could do with it if you didn’t come back for it

A dollar! Leopold Schneider pressed his starved face against the bars like a maddened bird. "This is an important award. Why, do you know there were two thousand quarter-finalists out of twenty thousand, only fifty semifinalists. And I won! I recited ‘The Raven,’ and I won, from twenty thousand. I was the best of twenty thousand."

Good, good, you are one in twenty thousand, Leopold, maybe one in a million. That’s why I will loan you a dollar . . . because I’m so impressed.

"But one in twenty thousand. You don’t think I would part with that glory for a miserable dollar, do you!"

There is a very small market for oratory awards with your name engraved on them. One dollar, Sol said, lowering his eyes to the checks again.

Look, I’m hungry. I’m busy writing a great, great play. I just need a few dollars to carry me. I’ll redeem it, I swear it. It’s worth more than money . . .

Not to me, Leopold.

I’ll give you triple interest. . . .

One dollar, the Pawnbroker said without looking up. He had added one column of numbers three times now.

What’s the matter with you? Leopold Schneider shrilled suddenly in the quiet store. Upstairs, Ortiz’ footsteps stopped for a moment at the sound, as though he might be considering coming down to see what was happening. Haven’t you got a heart?

No, Sol answered. No heart.

What a world this is!

Sol ran his finger deliberately down the column of numbers again.

Five dollars at least? Leopold whined, breathing the sour breath of the chronically hungry on the Pawnbroker.

Sol finally totaled the first column, carried a seven to the second.

All right, three dollars, at least three miserable dollars. What is it to you?

Sol raised his gray, impervious face. All the clocks ticked around his unrelenting stare. I am busy. Go away now if you please. I have no use for the damned thing anyhow.

All right, all right, give me the dollar, Leopold said in a trembling half-whisper.

Sol reached into the money drawer and took out a bill as greasy and battered as Leopold’s paper bag. He tore off a pawn ticket, wrote up the description of the award, and gave the claim ticket to Leopold Schneider. Then he continued his adding of the numbers. Leopold stood there for a full minute before he turned and went out of the store with the awkward tread of a huge, ungainly bird.

Only several minutes later did the Pawnbroker look up to stare at the empty doorway. He rubbed his eyes in a little gesture of weariness. Daniel Webster caught a tiny dart of sunlight, and it disturbed Sol’s corner vision. He picked the award up and shoved it into a low, dark shelf where the light never reached.

Mrs. Harmon might have seemed a relief after Leopold Schneider. She was big and brown, and her face had long ago committed her to frequent smiling; even in repose it was a series of benevolently curving lines. Mrs. Harmon was convinced you could either laugh or cry, that there were no other alternatives; she had elected to go with the former.

Come on, Mistuh Nazerman, smile! You got some more business comin’ at you. Here I is with a load of pure profit for you. She held up two silver candlesticks, the latest of her diminishing, yet never quite depleted, store of heirlooms. Her husband, Willy Harmon, was a janitor in a department store and came home with occasional delights for her in the form of floor samples, remains of old window dressings, and various other fruits of his modest thievery. Still, their needs were greater than his timid supplying. They had constant medical bills for a crippled son and were trying to put their daughter